* Don't watch .mount cgroups to reduce number of inotify watches
    * Fix NVML initialization race condition
    * Fix brtfs disk metrics when using a subdirectory of a subvolume
* Bump version of prometheus-to-sd to 0.2.6 to decrease log noise and include latest security patches. ([#64964](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/64964), [@loburm](https://github.com/loburm))

  - Add support for `--cloud-config`
  - Update group identifier to use for Cluster API annotations
  
  ### Exoscale
  - Add support for Exoscale
  
  ### GCE
  - Decrease the number of GCE Read Requests made while deleting nodes
  - Base pricing of custom instances on their instance family type
  - Add pricing information for missing machine types

* kubeadm - Increase the manifest upgrade timeout to make upgrades more reliable. ([#65029](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/65029), [@detiber](https://github.com/detiber))
* Webhooks for the mutating admission controller now support "remove" operation. ([#64971](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/64971), [@sttts](https://github.com/sttts))

- Azure virtual machine scale sets (VMSS) allow you to create and manage identical load balanced VMs that automatically increase or decrease based on demand or a set schedule.

- Number of errors reported to the metric `storage_operation_duration_seconds_count` for emptyDir decreased significantly because previously one error was reported for each projected volume created. ([#117022](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/117022), [@mpatlasov](https://github.com/mpatlasov)) [SIG Storage]

* fix detach azure disk back off issue which has too big lock in failure retry condition ([#76573](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/76573), [@andyzhangx](https://github.com/andyzhangx))
* Increase Azure default maximumLoadBalancerRuleCount to 250. ([#72621](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/72621), [@feiskyer](https://github.com/feiskyer))

New alpha features include:
* Online volume resizing will increase the filesystem size of a resized volume without requiring a Pod restart.

## Changelog since v1.8.13

### Other notable changes

* Bump version of prometheus-to-sd to 0.2.6 to decrease log noise and include latest security patches. ([#64963](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/64963), [@loburm](https://github.com/loburm))

- Fixed a regression preventing garbage collection of RBAC role and binding objects ([#90534](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/90534), [@apelisse](https://github.com/apelisse)) [SIG Auth]
- Kubeadm: increase robustness for "kubeadm join" when adding etcd members on slower setups ([#90645](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/90645), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123)) [SIG Cluster Lifecycle]

 - Fixes a regression in 1.17 that dropped cache-control headers on API requests ([#90468](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/90468), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt)) [SIG API Machinery and Testing]
 - Kubeadm: increase robustness for "kubeadm join" when adding etcd members on slower setups ([#90645](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/90645), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123)) [SIG Cluster Lifecycle]